Industry Briefs

Nov. 24, 1997
BP Shipping chartered four new very large crude carriers, to be delivered in 1999 and 2000. The ships will be provided under a bareboat charter by Cambridge Oil Transportation Corp. and financed through a bond issue. The 300,000 dwt ships will be double-hulled and built by South Korea's Samsung Heavy Industries Co. Ltd. El Paso Energy International Co.,

Tankers

BP Shipping chartered four new very large crude carriers, to be delivered in 1999 and 2000. The ships will be provided under a bareboat charter by Cambridge Oil Transportation Corp. and financed through a bond issue. The 300,000 dwt ships will be double-hulled and built by South Korea's Samsung Heavy Industries Co. Ltd.

Power

El Paso Energy International Co., Houston, let a 4-year operating and maintenance contract to Stewart & Stevenson Operations Inc., Houston, for three phases of a power project in northern Brazil. El Paso Energy will install a total of eight turbine generators with combined capacity of 250 MW at two sites in Mau and on a barge anchored at Aparecida. Each phase will operate in simple cycle using liquid fuel shipped by barge from a nearby refinery. Electrical power will be purchased by Eletronorte, a unit of Brazil's state utility Eletrobr s, under a 4-year contract. Start-up is expected by the end of November.

Repsol SA
and Iberdrola Investimentos Soc. Unipessoal Ltda. will form a 50-50 joint venture (JV) to launch energy projects in Spain under an existing industrial cooperation agreement between the companies. The JV will invest 300 billion pesetas in combined-cycle and cogeneration plants during 1998-2003, including a planned integrated gasification combined-cycle plant at Bilbao (OGJ, Oct. 27, 1997, p. 43). Total power production capacity for the program will be about 3,000 MW.

Drilling-production

Petroleo Brasileiro SA let contract to Bluewater Offshore Production Systems Ltd., Essen, Belgium, for turnkey construction and delivery of a turret mooring system. The turret will be installed on the operator's F-47 floating storage and offloading vessel (FSO), due to be installed in 815 m of water in Roncador giant oil field off Brazil. The FSO is a converted 270,000 dwt Petrobras tanker, which will store crude oil from the P-36 production semisubmersible during early development of the field.

South Korea's
Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. Ltd. hired Enercon Engineering Inc., Houston, to perform detailed design and procurement of the deck and production facilities for an eight-pile production platform to be installed in the East China Sea. The platform will be operated by China Offshore Oil Nanhai West Corp. in its Weizhou 12-1 field in 100 ft of water. The platform will have capacity to produce 43,000 b/d of oil and 20 MMcfd of gas, plus water injection and treating capacity of 40,000 b/d.

Energy Africa Ltd.,
Cape Town, acquired a 40% stake in a production sharing contract for the Nziembou block in Gabon, under its Energy Africa Gabon joint venture with the government of Gabon and private investors. The block will be operated by Perenco Gabon, which has a 60% interest. The license area covers 1,025 sq km and surrounds Moukouti, Niungo, and Echira fields and part of Rabi-Kounga field.

Modec (U.S.A.) Ltd.,
Houston, let contract to Smit Maritime Contractors BV, Rotterdam, to install a wire-and-chain mooring system for an FSO vessel. The FSO was converted in Singapore for use by Marathon Petroleum Gabon in Tchatamba field, 100 miles south of Port Gentil, Gabon. The contract includes installation of risers and flow lines for the vessel. Installation will start at the end of November; the target date for first oil is Dec. 20.

Kvaerner AS,
Oslo, disclosed two contracts for its U.K. units. Kvaerner's Govan shipyard in Scotland is to build an offshore oil well test ship for Brovig Offshore AS, Oslo, under a $63 million contract. Delivery is slated for May 1999. Kvaerner's Teesside yard in Northeast England is to build drilling facilities for Jotun platform in the Norwegian North Sea under a $29 million contract from Bentec Norge AS, Tananger, Norway. The 1,500 metric ton drilling support module and 1,300 ton derrick equipment set are due for sailaway in August 1998.

A unit of
Scimitar Hydrocarbons Corp., Calgary, signed an agreement with Egypt General Petroleum Corp. to develop Issaran heavy oil field in Egypt, onshore and adjacent to the Gulf of Suez. Issaran has been producing about 500 b/d. Scimitar said studies indicate the field has potential to produce 5,000-20,000 b/d with advanced technology. Scimitar is conducting field tests and plans a 3D seismic survey, drilling, and increased primary production early in 1998.

Oilsands

Shell Canada Ltd., Calgary, filed plans with Alberta regulators for a $10 million (Canadian) pilot plant at a proposed major oilsands project near Fort McMurray, Alta. The pilot plant is for the $3.2 billion Muskeg River project on Shell leases 43 miles north of Fort McMurray. The project includes a $1 billion, 150,000 b/d oilsands mine, a pipeline to the Edmonton area, and a $1.8 billion upgrader northeast of Edmonton. Construction on the mining operation and upgrader is scheduled to begin in 1999.

Companies

Coastal Corp. and Petroleos de Venezuela SA unit Maraven SA signed a memorandum of understanding to form a joint venture (JV) to produce and refine extra-heavy crude from the Zuata region of Venezuela's Orinoco oil belt. The JV would install an upgrader in Venezuela to convert the crude to synthetic crude. The syncrude would be shipped to Coastal's 95,000 b/d refinery at Corpus Christi, Tex., which will likely be purchased by the JV and upgraded with a new delayed coker and another hydrotreater. The products would be marketed by the JV to U.S. Gulf Coast markets.

Consolidated Natural Gas Co.
(CNG), Pittsburgh, approved a $715 million capital budget for 1998. This represents a 32% increase from projected 1997 capital spending. About $307 million will be spent on exploration and production, and $150 million is earmarked for international energy investments, compared with 1997 spending of, respectively, $288 million and $40 million. CNG plans to spend $142 million on natural gas distribution, $64 million on natural gas transmission, and $26 million on energy marketing services.

Mercury Montana Inc.,
Fort Worth, merged all of its Montana oil and gas assets with the assets of MSR Exploration Ltd., also of Fort Worth. The merged companies will operate under the name MSR Exploration Ltd., even though Mercury is the surviving corporation. The new MSR is valued at about $40 million. The company will own about 10 million bbl of oil reserves.

Oxbow Exploration Inc.,
Calgary, completed acquisition of 50% of the assets of Samedan Oil of Canada Inc., Calgary, for $27 million (Canadian). The acquisition includes interests in oil and gas production and reserves in western Canada and more than 330,000 gross acres of undeveloped land. The deal expands Oxbow's production to more than 2,600 boed.

Oneok Resources Co.
agreed to acquire Washita Production Co., Tulsa. The deal includes more than 300 producing wells and proven reserves of about 23 bcf of gas equivalent in Texas, Kansas, and Oklahoma.

Safety

Twenty-seven companies formed the SafeTrans joint industry project to develop a system to design and operate tows of oil-related facilities and generate a de facto standard for conducting tows. SafeTrans will cover self-propelled, wet, or barge tows and include transoceanic tows and final tow-outs/installations. The project will create two systems: an office-based simulator to calculate criteria, demonstrate tow scenarios, and help optimize a tow/installation; and a ship-based system to measure key responses of the cargo/ship and provide real-time advice to the tow captain on weather routing and heading changes.

LNG

Qatar Shipping Co., Mobil Corp., and Osprey Maritime Ltd. formed a joint venture to provide marine transportation of liquefied natural gas exports based on Qatar's supergiant North field. The new company, Qatar LNG Shipping Co., will help Qatar achieve its goal of becoming a major global LNG supplier.

Exploration

Pakistan granted an exploration license to a joint venture of Unocal Pakistan Ltd. and state entity Government Holdings for the 2,300 sq km Karachi block in Karachi and Dadu districts, Sindh province. Unocal is operator of the block and will make all exploration expenditures. One exploratory well is planned during the initial 3-year term.

Pyramid Energy Inc.,
Calgary, negotiated a joint venture agreement with Pakistan Petroleum Ltd. on two gas-prone blocks of the Middle Indus basin in south-central Pakistan. The concessions cover about 900,000 acres of Block 22 and the Sadiqabad block and are close to major gas producing fields.

Marketing

Stockholm's Autofill is bringing its "drive-through" automatic gasoline refueling systems to customers in the U.S. and Canada (OGJ, June 23, 1997, p. 27). The system refuels cars without drivers having to exit their cars. Autofill says the system takes only 90 sec to dispense 10 gal and reduces evaporative emissions. It is in use in Sweden, Germany, and Norway. The first North American installation will be announced by yearend, says Autofill's U.S. unit, Trans Robotics Inc., Jacksonville.

Petrochemicals

Qatar General Petroleum Corp. and Phillips Petroleum Co. signed an $825 million joint venture agreement on their planned world-scale petrochemical complex at Mesaieed, Qatar (OGJ, May 26, 1997, p. 30). The venture will be named Qatar Chemical Complex, or Q-Chem. Start-up has been moved to 2001 from 2000. Together, the partners will contribute 30% of capital needed for the project; 70% will be raised from foreign banks and other financing agencies.

Saudi Petrochemical Co.
(Sadaf) is performing a feasibility study of a $270 million aromatics plant at Al-Jubail. The plant would have capacity to produce 600,000 metric tons/year of benzene and paraxylene. The proposed plant would go on stream in 2000.

Amoco Chemical Belgium Co. NV
let contract to Foster Wheeler Energy Ltd., Reading, U.K., for engineering, procurement, and construction of a paraxylene unit at its Geel, Belgium, complex. The 420,000 metric ton/year unit will come on stream in first quarter 2000. The unit will provide feed for Amoco's existing and planned purified terephthalic acid units in Geel.

Dow Chemical Co.
will increase its production capacity for ethanolamines-specialty products used for gas treatment and detergent and herbicide manufacturing. Capacity at the company's Plaquemine, La., plant will be increased to 230 million lb/year from 185 million lb/year. The expansion is due for completion this fall. Dow expects to expand the plant further next year.

Aristech Chemical Corp.,
Pittsburgh, let two contracts for design and construction of a third phenol line at its Haverhill, Ohio, plant. M.W. Kellogg Co. will handle design and procurement, and Morrison Knudsen Corp. will do some procurement and handle construction. The third line will bring total capacity at the complex to 942 million lb/year.

Pipelines

Alliance Pipeline Partnership (OGJ, Nov. 17, 1997, p. 46) made major changes in its ownership line-up. Alberta Energy Co. and PanCanadian Petroleum Ltd., both of Calgary, sold their equity interests in Alliance to IPL Energy Inc., also of Calgary. The deal increases IPL's equity interest in Alliance to 23.42%. In another deal, Summit Resources Ltd., Calgary, added its 4.68% equity interest in Alliance to the 20.16% held by Chauvco Resources Ltd., Calgary, through Fort Chicago Energy Partners LP-an investment vehicle for the project. That increases Fort Chicago's interest to 24.84%.

Notti Pipeline Co.,
an affiliate of Houston's NGC Oil Trading & Transportation Inc., bought Texaco Pipeline Inc.'s 400-mile North Texas crude oil gathering system. The Graham gathering system includes 140 miles of main line and 260 miles of gathering systems throughout Wise, Jack, Young, Archer, and Wichita counties.

NGC Corp.
signed a contract with El Paso Natural Gas Co. for 1.3 bcfd of pipeline capacity to California on El Paso's system. The contract will cost at least $70 million. It will begin Jan. 1, 1998, and last at least 2 years.

Westcoast Energy (U.S.) Inc.
acquired 331/3% ownership in the TriState Pipeline Project. The new pipeline will transport gas from Joliet, Ill., to White Pigeon, Mich. CMS Gas Transmission & Storage owns the rest of the project, which is scheduled to begin service at the end of 2000 and will cost $350-750 million. Open season will close Dec. 10.

Futures

New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) and London's International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) agreed to jointly develop an advanced electronic trading system for the oil, natural gas, electricity, and coal industries. The system will be based on IPE's Energy Trading System (ETS), but will be a significant enhancement of both ETS and Nymex's Access system. The two exchanges will co-develop and share costs for the project. A contract is expected soon.

IPE
says last month was its busiest October ever and the second busiest month in IPE's history. Volume reached 1,524,397 lots, equivalent to 1.4 billion bbl of oil and 39.24 bcf of natural gas. On Oct. 3, IPE's busiest day, rumors that a U.S. aircraft carrier had been ordered to move into the Persian Gulf spurred Brent trading of 93,000 lots-equivalent to 93 million bbl or about one third more than global daily oil use.

Copyright 1997 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.